The fetishization of globalization and its consequences

I heard a show on the radio yesterday talking about the anxiety young people are facing. It discussed the disconnect in this regard between young people and older folks, because the former have a better grasp of the precarity of our national and global situations. And they are going to live longer with its consequences.

The speaker cited the toilet paper panic of last year and postulated about what might happen if the next panic is directed not a hygienic product but food.

The COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the increasing effects of the climate crisis, is showing the importance of growing and making more things locally and the risks of not doing so.

There's long been a fantasy that specialization combined with a robust global supply chain would solve all the world's problems. This fantasy is dependent on a global harmony that is very atypical from a historical perspective.

To be clear, this is not an anti-globalization post. Globalization is essential to many of the positive aspects of how we live today. Fewer barriers to trade are generally - not always, anti-competitive practices undermine its benefits - better than more.

But there has to be a better balance between the local and the macro, to hedge against risks in both.

Being entirely dependent on the rest of the world is a major risk when that connection is severed, such as during a global pandemic. We've seen the effects of this already.

Only 12% of world's computer chips are manufactured in the US, compared to 37% three decades ago. And that's caused major production problems for US-based auto and electronics companies.

Canada, which has no domestic COVID-vaccine manufacturers, has fully innoculated only 19% of its citizens, compared to 45% in the US.

Even in my local area of upstate New York, many tourist-based businesses have been dependent on summer workers from Eastern Europe, already a risk in a country often run by an immigrant-bashing party. Their absence during the border closure is causing major staffing issues.

Being overly dependent on a global supply chain has led to an astonishing lack of resilience in many sectors of the economy.

One thing individuals can do is to buy as much of their food from local sources as possible. This will help ensure those local producers remain an option when a panic-induced shortage or further global supply chain disruption hits the food sector.

The tyranny of the minority

There's been much talk recently about the fate of the US Senate's filibuster.

The filibuster has been most often used to preserve white supremacy and to obstruct voting rights. And both remain its primary uses today. 

The filibuster should have been abolished a long time ago. There's a reason why no other legislative body in the country has anything like it.

It's also worth remembering that the filibuster is not indicating anywhere in the Constitution. It was also never used during the first 50 years of the Senate's history.

The pretext used to cover up the white supremacy-preserving purpose of the filibuster is gobbledygook about "preserving minority rights." 

In deviously gaslighting fashion, "minority" in this context means white elites.

Our constitutional system was designed to protect the rights of the (white) minority. But 'preserving minority [sic] rights' has been corrupted into something far more sinister: a minority veto.

Our system already has plenty of protections from the so-called tyranny of the majority.

In order for a bill to become law, it needs to...

1) Pass the House 

2) Pass the Senate, whose very structure is already tilted in favor of states where few people choose to live

3) Be signed by the president, who himself is elected as the result of a system already tilted in favor of states where few people choose to live.

4) If vetoed by the president, it requires a 2/3 majority of each house of Congress to become law.

5) We also have a federal Constitution with certain safeguards. Even if a bill passes all those hurdles, those offended by a 'tyrannical' law can appeal to the judiciary to overturn said law on constitutional grounds.

Giving 41 senators outright veto power over all legislation is unjustifiable and further corrodes confidence in our already teetering republican democracy. It would be absurd even if the Senate didn't have a nihilistic minority of members.

People have talked about returning to the old filibuster where you could only block legislation by actually standing on your feet and talking. Or about requiring 41 votes to block rather than 60 to approve. These are but band aids on a gaping flesh wound. They don't address the fundamental injustice of a minority veto.

You could argue that the problem is not the existence of the filibuster but the low character of the current crop of senators. But the filibuster has been used in this fashion for most of our country's history. It's impossible to plausibly argue that the filibuster has done more good than harm.

I admit, the existence of the filibuster isn't as corrosive to public confidence as the suffocating influence of money in politics. But the sclerosis it ensures is one more giant hurdle preventing a truly representative political system from emerging.

The Constitution begins with pious words about 'forming a more perfect union." It's long past time we got back to working on that task.

Helping the less fortunate is the most Christian of values

I read with interest this article on how government checks during the pandemic have helped ease the suffering of many Americans.

I've been working and paying taxes since I was 14 years old.

Other than Pell Grants in college, there is not one time I've taken a dime of money in direct public aid. Not unemployment. Not welfare. Not HEAP. Nothing else. Not once.

Do I resent that I work hard and pay taxes to help out those less fortunate?

NOT ONE DAMN BIT.

Even though a small minority might take advantage of it?

Still NOT ONE DAMN BIT.

No reason to throw the baby out with the bath water.

The reason why is very simple.

I've personally known a lot of people who have been unemployed and were the furthest thing from lazy. I've seen proof of the old saying that you work harder when you're trying to find a job than when you have a job. I've seen the shame and humiliation these good people felt for a situation that, quite often, was no fault of their own. And that's even without privileged jackasses crapping on them.

Do I resent that I was working hard to ease their misfortune?

NOT ONE DAMN BIT.

But the reason is simpler. I was raised in a household with Christian values. I recall the old saying "There but for the grace of God go I."

If I lost my job after working hard for all those years and some schmuck crapped on me for it, I wouldn't be too thrilled.

And if after paying into system for over 30 years, someone called me lazy or a leech because I tried to get a fraction of that back, I might well punch them in the mouth.

I try to have empathy for others - except the cruel - because my luck might run out at some point and I would want others to be decent to me in such a situation. It's the civilized human being thing to do.

There are literally thousands of things I resent my tax dollars going toward. Corporate welfare. Imperialism. Funding foreign armies who commit human rights abuses.

I would much rather my tax dollars go toward easing human suffering than causing it. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/06/02/nation/stimulus-checks-substantially-reduced-hardship-study-shows/?p1=BGSearch_Overlay_Results&fbclid=IwAR3LqKe53Yn3z4uHjHzNIdvUuz8H-OD4Gd17QLFtS0uE2ANmwrESgeyfwCI